This year, I decided to ditch the same old resolutions I've had and heard about for years: be healthier, go to the gym more, study every day, lose weight. Sure, some of these are good resolutions and I'm sure they've helped lots of people achieve or come close to achieving their goals.

However, for me, they just weren't appealing or working. These goals only ever made me feel pressure to achieve them and guilty when life got in the way. While a little bit of pressure can be nice when pushing yourself to complete goals, I found that these resolutions and year-long goals weren't productive. But at the beginning of the year, I still wanted to make a list of things I wanted to accomplish this year.

I decided my goals would be a little more attainable and less stressful — something I would look forward to doing. While there were a handful of choices, I finally decided my resolution, the one I was most excited for was creating a piece of art every month this year.

I'm a creative person by nature, though this creativity usually manifests in my writing. I decided that making visual art would be a fun challenge for myself and a cool thing to reflect on once the year was over.

So far, I've made two art pieces — one, a painting I did at the beginning of the year. The other, a mug I painted in February! While I've yet to make the piece of art for March or April, I'm excited to do them just as soon as finals for over.

There's a lot of reasons why I've found this such a rewarding experience so far. For one, it's given me a reason to step away from the stress of school and life and spend a couple hours working on something fun every month. It's easy to get overwhelmed with school and work so being able to look forward to completing this goal each month is awesome.

Another reason I'm so excited about this resolution is the way it's allowed me to connect with my family and friends! Both times I've made my art piece, it was with loved ones. It was a lot of fun to connect with our art and talk and hang out while doing it.

The last reason I'm looking forward to continuing this goal is the way it will allow me to look back on this year. Each piece of art I create will be a reflection of where I was at and how I was feeling during the month I made the piece. I'll be able to look at them and remember what was going on in my life at the time — kind of like a creative art diary.

There are countless other reasons I've found this resolution to be such an awesome one but I can't share them all. I would, however, suggest anyone who is interested in this to try it for themselves. It's a super enriching goal and one that is equally productive and fun.